Geoff Keffer joins 3-time-champions club with runaway victory in Colorado PGA Professional Championship
By Gary Baines – 9/17/2025
COLORADO SPRINGS — At this juncture in his career, Geoff Keffer is doing more than merely competing for short-term gratification. He’s to the point of playing for legacy.
And on Wednesday, the 47-year-old from Lakewood added another installment in his golf-related legacy plan.
Keffer, a PGA assistant professional at Lakewood Country Club, not only won the Colorado PGA’s most prestigious tournament — the Colorado PGA Professional Championship — for the third time, but he lapped the field at Flying Horse North.
After taking just a one-stroke lead into the final round, Keffer played his first five holes in 4 under par en route to an eight-stroke victory. He made two eagles on the day — a 5-footer on 5 and a 25-footer after driving the green on the par-4 17th.
Keffer becomes the 10th known player to win three or more overall Section championships, joining four-time champions Micah Rudosky, Ron Vlosich, Jack Sommers and Fred Wampler, and three-time champs Doug Rohrbaugh, Bill Loeffler, Ken Krieger, Dow Finsterwald and Bob Hold.
That’s in addition to Keffer winning six Colorado Assistant PGA Professional Championships. Keffer has been named Dow Finsterwald Colorado PGA Player of the Year an unprecedented nine time — and may make it 10 this year — and the Associate Player of the Year on three occasions.
That’s some serious legacy planning.
“I do look at the history and everything,” Keffer said. “All the Players of the Years I’ve (been fortunate enough to win, and winning) this … Anytime you can get into rare air, it’s always a good thing.”
Keffer earned the Colorado PGA Professional Championship trophy for the third time in the last decade.
Wednesday’s CPGA Professional Championship victory — following ones in 2016 and ’20 — was worth $14,500 out of the $75,000 overall purse for Keffer.
Keffer closed with a 6-under-par 66 which featured the two eagles, four birdies and two bogeys. That gave him a 13-under-par total for three days — in a different zip code as even his closest competitors.
“Hat’s off to Geoff to win by eight against this field,” said Ben Lanting of Bear Creek Golf Club, one of four players who tied for second place, eight behind Keffer. “He’s an incredible player and he deserves it. I know he works hard.
“I wouldn’t say I foresaw this, but I’m not surprised by what happened. Given how well I’ve gotten to know Geoff over the years, and knowing the kind of player he is, he’s certainly capable of this. The rest of us, myself included, didn’t have what he had today and couldn’t make a run from the second-, third-, fourth-place position that we were in. Without that, we didn’t put any pressure on him and he just cruised.”
Keffer gives a little body English to his tee shot on the 10th hole.
It got to the point Keffer’s lead was so big that down the stretch, he and playing partners Dustin Miller of The Swing Bays and Christopher Hyten of Castle Pines Golf Club were almost doubling over with laughter, cracking each other up with some inside jokes on the 17th green and the 18th tee.
“We were laughing so hard. It was just fun stuff in the group,” Keffer said. “It was just awesome today. … The group I had today was so much fun, so this one might have been the most fun of the three (CPGA Professional titles he’s won) so far just because of that.”
Ben Lanting finished second in the CPGA Professional Championship for the fourth time in the last five years.
Sharing second place with Lanting at 5 under par were former champion Caine Fitzgerald of Meadow Hills Golf Course, 2022 national Senior PGA Professional Champion Matt Schalk of Colorado National Golf Club and Henry Bernard of TPC Colorado. Fitzgerald, Schalk and Bernard carded final-round 70s, while Lanting had a 71.
Rudosky, the winner in 2021, ’22 and ’23, finished solo sixth at 4 under.
2012 champion Caine Fitzgerald also shared second place on Wednesday.
Keffer and seven fellow PGA professionals qualified for the national PGA Professional Championship, which will be held April 26-30 at Bandon Dunes in Oregon. Joining him in advancing were Schalk, Fitzgerald, Lanting, Bernard, Rudosky, Hyten (-3) and Bill Hancock of Meadow Hills (-2), who prevailed in a playoff over Dan Sniffin for the final national berth.
“Winning is fantastic. It’s special every single time. Qualifying is the main thing. Getting both is just awesome,” Keffer said.
While Lanting has yet to win a Colorado PGA Professional Championship, he’s finished second in the event four of the last five years.
“I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed,” he said. “But it doesn’t help to look at it as a negative. I know I’m trying the best I can and working as hard as I can. … I’d like to win this thing at some point. Four seconds is a lot, so I’ll be working hard to do that next year.”
Matt Schalk also was high on the leaderboard during the final round.
It’s worth noting that Keffer and Lanting are 1-2 in the 2025 Player of the Year standings heading into the stretch run of the season.
This year’s victory comes a year after Keffer finished second in this event by two strokes to Tristin Goodwin. In 2024, Keffer battled back and hip issues that left him in considerable pain at the time. Those are still problems for him, but he largely kept them at bay this week.
“I was just hoping they didn’t pop up,” he said. “Unfortunately, I was eating Advils like they were Tic Tacs just to make sure of it. I only hit two shots today and four for the week that (caused) any pain, so I was lucky with that.”
Henry Bernard rounded out the foursome who shared runner-up honors.
On Wednesday, Keffer wasted no time pulling away, making 6-foot birdies on holes 1 and 4, and backing that up with his 5-foot eagle on 5. There, “I hit probably the worst tee shot of the tournament,” he said. “It just happened to bounce down the cart path, and I had about 140 yards in (on the par-5). I hit a gap wedge from the hay to 5 feet and made that one.
“Unfortuately for the entire tournament, I only made four putts over 10 feet,” Keffer added. “Everything else was either 2-putt birdies or I stuck it pretty close.”
By the time the 36-hole leaders reached the final holes of the front nine, Keffer was already ahead by a halndful. His lone bogey in the final 11 holes — a three-putt bogey on 11 — was just a blip in an otherwise-dominating final-day performance.
“Winning by one or eight — winning is all that matters,” he said.
For all the scores from the Colorado PGA Professional Championship, CLICK HERE.
Keffer and caddie Sam Marley teamed up this week.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com